Robert Yee

Lecturer and Postdoctoral Associate

Yale University


About

I work on the economic history of modern Europe, with a focus on Britain and Germany after the First World War. My research interests include the history of political economy, finance, and geopolitics.

My first book, The Citys Defense: The Bank of England and the Remaking of Economic Governance, 1914–1939, was published with Cambridge University Press in 2025. It shows how the Bank maintained the status of the City of London as an international financial center after the First World War. The research for this project was awarded the Economic History Society’s Monograph Prize in 2026.

I am also working on two additional projects: one on the financial history of modern Germany, and another on the evolution of austerity and budget politics across twentieth-century Europe.

My research has appeared in Business History Review, Central European History, Contemporary European History, Contemporary British History, and the Financial History Review. I have received additional support from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Embassy of France’s Chateaubriand Fellowship, the Anglo-Austrian Society, the Prussian Privy State Archives, and Harvard Business School.

Currently, I am a lecturer and postdoctoral associate in the Program on Ethics, Politics and Economics at Yale University, where I am a faculty affiliate on the European Studies Council. I am also the 2025/2026 Dr. Richard Hunt Fellow at the American Council on Germany. Previously, I was a junior research fellow at Wadham College, Oxford. I received a PhD and MA from Princeton University, as well as a BA from Vanderbilt University.